“We cannot allow toxicity to win” says Taoiseach following attacks on candidates

June’s local and European elections have been overshadowed by attacks on candidates and a general air of intimidation.

Candidates from a range of parties have spoken about being harassed and abused while out canvassing or putting up posters and in some cases, have been physically assaulted.

On May 8, independent councillor for Ongar Tania Doyle was assaulted by a man with anti-immigration views.

Speaking to The Journal, Doyle said her attacker “was demanding my views on immigration.”

“He professed to be an Irish Catholic and said that we’re a Catholic country, and funnily enough he attacked a Catholic woman-  the irony of it.”

Doyle said her attacker accused her of being “part of the establishment” – despite Doyle being an independent – and stated, “I’m not a legislator, I’m in local politics.”

Her husband was injured in the assault which went on for 15 minutes, and Doyle said she and her husband “feared for our lives.”

During the assault, Doyle recalled thinking “we’re not gonna come out of this,” and the assault only stopped after someone associated with the attacker intervened.

“I think I’m a strong, independent woman. I’ve worked very, very hard to get where I am. But when it affects your family, like my husband’s glasses were smashed into his face. He’s black and blue from head to toe. He’s a big gash, he’d blood all over his face. You say to yourself, is it worth it?”

Two campaign workers putting up posters for North Inner City candidate Ellen Doherty were reportedly threatened by a man with a knife in Smithfield, with the man reportedly referring to the Social Democrats as “Nazis”.

In 1930s Germany, the Social Democratic Party were banned by the governing Nazi Party.

O’Doherty said, “my campaign team is 90% women, 90% people under 30 & I don’t believe they would have faced this intimidation if that weren’t the case.”

“This behaviour whether online or in person cannot be tolerated or normalised and must be fought back against.”

Green Party councillor for North Inner City Janet Horner was assaulted by a man who shouted “Dublin 1 is for the far-right.”

Speaking to the Irish Independent, Horner said her attacker threatened to kill her. 

She said she has written to Minister for Justice Helen McEntee calling for a cross-party initiative that supports candidates who suffer abuse on the campaign trail.

Horner said, “you just need to take one look at the social media profiles of any candidate of colour to see the completely unacceptable kind of stuff that people are being forced to put up with just for standing for public office – something we need more decent and principled people to do.”

She stated, “we can’t leave the future of our society, environment and communities in the hands of a few hard men who don’t have the best interests of people at heart.”

Artane-Whitehall Independent Left councillor John Lyons has reported his posters are being vandalised and torn down and stated “I have an idea as to who is doing it but that’s for another day.”

Former TD and local election candidate Ruth Coppinger posted that one of her posters was vandalised with a swastika and pointed to “a menacing atmosphere the far-right are trying to create in elections for women, for socialists & generally.”

Coppinger’s election posters and posters advertising an online talk about improving disability services in Dublin 15 have been vandalised in recent weeks.

“The far-right can’t be allowed to create an atmosphere designed to frighten and to limit the campaigns of the left,” she said.

North Inner City independent candidate Malachy Steenson stated that a man banged on the door of his office in East Wall and said the man threatened to kill him.

Steenson said that the man had been followed to the office by Gardaí.

“They didn’t know he was serious so they followed him and he had arrived here (to the office), intending to attack me or kill me.”

Steenson said, “we are going to pay a heavy price in this country for what’s happening.”

A man was arrested by Gardaí for a public order incident outside Steenson’s office.

Taoiseach Simon Harris criticised the atmosphere of intimidation surrounding this year’s local elections, saying “these attacks are despicable attacks on individuals and they’re attacks on democracy.”

“Because we live in one of the world’s longest-serving, most successful democracies and everybody has a right to put their name forward. Nobody has to do anything that should be chilling in relation to people’s participation in democracy,” he told the Irish Examiner.

Harris, who has had to contend with protesters outside is house while he was Minister for Health, said “I believe passionately in democracy. I have so much respect for anybody who puts their name on a ballot paper even if I fundamentally disagree with them or they fundamentally disagree with me – that’s the beauty of democracy.”

“I will always defend to the nth degree everybody’s participation in the democratic processes.”

He stated, “we cannot allow this element of toxicity to win in Irish politics.”

“We can’t allow it to have that chilling effect where good people, young people, new people – whatever their political persuasion – are in any way put off participation in politics.

In late April, a German MEP belonging to the Social Democratic Party – Labour’s German equivalent – was seriously injured in an attack by teenagers.

On May 8 a declaration titled “In Defence of Democracy” which explicitly condemns political violence against candidates was signed by Socialists and Democrats (home of Labour and the Social Democrats European grouping), the Left (Sinn Féin’s and Clare Daly’s European grouping) the Greens and Renew Europe (Fianna Fáil’s European grouping).

Notably, the European People’s Party, home to Fine Gael, did not sign the declaration.

Green MEP Ciáran Cuffe challenged Fine Gael’s MEPs to question why Fine Gael’s European grouping did not sign up to the agreement.

Cuffe said “it is worrying that Fine Gael’s political grouping in Europe declined to sign this statement that rejects violence and endorses democracy. As some of their member parties strike deals with the far-right, it is important that EPP members show their commitment to defending democracy and rejecting violence.”